Closings

Severe Weather

On this day: May 23

2012: Singer Adam Lambert becomes the first openly gay artist to claim the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, with his second album "Trespassing" debuting atop the chart.

2010: The final episode of the supernatural castaway drama "Lost" airs. The show's finale after six seasons was watched by nearly 14 million viewers and was met by highly polarized critical and fan reception.

2006: Politician Lloyd Bentsen, a four-term United States senator from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for vice president in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket, dies at the age of 85 in Houston, Texas. He also served as U.S. Treasury secretary during the first two years of President Bill Clinton's administration.

2006: The Dixie Chicks release "Taking the Long Way," their seventh studio album. The album would debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, sell more than 2 million copies in the U.S., and go on to win five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

2002: Professional golfer Sam Snead, who was one of the top players in the world for most of four decades, dies at the age of 89 in Hot Springs, Va., following complications from a stroke. Snead won a record 82 PGA Tour events, including seven majors, during his career. A 1974 inductee of the World Golf Hall of Fame, he won three of the four majors at least once, with the exception of the U.S. Open, which he finished as runner-up four times.

2000: Eminem releases his third album, "The Marshall Mathers LP." The album, which features the songs "The Real Slim Shady," "The Way I Am" and "Stan," would go on to sell more than 10 million copies in the United States alone, win a Grammy for Best Rap Album and be nominated for an Album of the Year Grammy.

1999: Professional wrestler Owen Hart, 34, falls to his death from the rafters of Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo., during the WWF's "Over the Edge" pay-per-view event. He was using a harness and a grapple line to enter the ring when he suddenly fell 78 feet, landing on the top rope and then being thrown into the ring. He later died of internal bleeding from blunt force trauma at the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City. Hart was a two-time WWF Intercontinental Champion, one-time WWF European Champion and four-time WWF World Tag Team Champion, and a member of the Hart wrestling family of Canada.

1994: The series finale of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" airs. The show, set in the 24th century, about 80 years after the original series, ran for seven seasons.

1986: Actor Sterling Hayden, best known for movies such as "Johnny Guitar," "The Asphalt Jungle," "The Killing," "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Long Goodbye," dies of prostate cancer at the age of 70 in Sausalito, Calif.

1980: Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall, premieres in theaters. The psychological horror movie, based off Stephen King's novel of the same name, was initially met with mixed reaction, but has since become widely regarded as one of the greatest films of the horror genre and a staple of pop culture.

1976: Actress Kelly Monaco, best known for playing Sam McCall on the daytime soap opera "General Hospital," is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Monaco, who started her career posing for Playboy and appearing on "Baywatch," is also known for winning the first season of "Dancing with the Stars."

1974: Singer-songwriter Jewel, best known for hit songs such as "Who Will Save Your Soul," "You Were Meant for Me" and "Foolish Games," is born Jewel Kilcher in Payson, Utah.

1974: Computer scientist and game show contestant Ken Jennings is born in Edmonds, Wash. Jennings is best known for holding the record for the longest winning streak on the game show "Jeopardy!" and as being the all-time leading money winner on American game shows. In 2004, Jennings won 74 "Jeopardy!" games before he was defeated by challenger Nancy Zerg on his 75th appearance. His total earnings on the show added up to more than $3.1 million, to which he later added another $600,000 won on other game shows, including "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"

1970: Paul McCartney's first solo album, "McCartney," hits No. 1.

1969: The Who's rock opera album "Tommy," which tells the story of a "deaf, dumb and blind kid" who becomes a "pinball wizard," is released. The double album would sell more than 20 million copies worldwide and peak at No. 4 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.

1960: Israel announces that Nazi Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, had been captured by Mossad operatives in Argentina on May 11. He was taken to Israel to face trial on 15 criminal charges, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. He was found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962.

1960: French engineer and inventor Georges Claude, who created neon lighting in 1910, dies at the age of 89 in Saint-Cloud, France.

1958: Explorer 1, the first successful American satellite, ceases transmission when its batteries die after nearly four months in orbit. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt and would remain in orbit until 1970. It has since been followed by more than 90 scientific spacecraft in the Explorer series.

1958: Writer Mitch Albom, who started off as a sports columnist and is known for the best-selling books "Tuesdays with Morrie," "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" and "For One More Day," is born in Passaic, N.J.

1958: Actor and comedian Drew Carey, best known for the sitcom "The Drew Carey Show" and as the host of "The Price is Right" since 2007, is born in Cleveland, Ohio.

1954: Boxer Marvin Hagler, who was Undisputed World Middleweight Champion from 1980 to 1987, is born in Newark, N.J. An inductee of the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame, Hagler made 12 undisputed title defenses and compiled a career record of 62 wins (52 by knockout), three losses and two draws.

1945: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, commits suicide by biting down on a hidden cyanide pill while in Allied custody. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and one of the persons most directly responsible for the Holocaust.

1937: American industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, the world's richest man and the first American worth more than $1 billion, dies of arteriosclerosis at the age of 97 in Ormond Beach, Fla. In 1870, Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust.

1934: Bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are ambushed by police and killed on a rural road in Bienville Parish, La. The six posse members shot more than 130 rounds at the legendary outlaws.

1934: The Toledo Auto-Lite Strike culminates in the "Battle of Toledo," which becomes a five-day running battle between roughly 6,000 workers and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard. The clash left two strikers dead and more than 200 people injured. The strike itself, which was began on April 12 by American Federation of Labor workers against the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, would last until June 3.

1933: Actress and author Joan Collins, best known for portraying Alexis Carrington Colby in the 1980s primetime soap opera "Dynasty," is born in London, England.

1917: Mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz, a pioneer of chaos theory who coined the term "butterfly effect," is born in West Hartford, Conn. Lorenz, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was trying to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts when he discovered chaos theory in 1961. He died at age 90 on April 16, 2008.

1910: Singer, actor, dancer and musician Scatman Crothers, best known for his roles in the 1970s sitcom "Chico and the Man" and the 1980 movie "The Shining," is born Benjamin Sherman Crothers in Terre Haute, Ind. He was also a prolific voiceover artist, providing the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the animated TV version of The Harlem Globetrotters, Autobot Jazz in "The Transformers" and the title character in the cartoon "Hong Kong Phooey." He died of pneumonia at age 76 on Nov. 22, 1986.

1906: Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian author whose major works include the plays "Peer Gynt," "A Doll's House," "Ghosts," "Hedda Gabler," "The Wild Duck" and "Rosmersholm," dies at the age of 78 in what is now Oslo, Norway. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare and "A Doll's House" is often cited as the world's most performed play.

1900: Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the second black soldier to receive the Medal of Honor. He received the honor 37 years after the July 18, 1863, Battle of Fort Wagner, during which he was wounded several times while saving, planting and retrieving the American flag. Although he was the second black soldier to be so honored, Carney's actions at Fort Wagner actually preceded the medal-winning actions of the first recipient. Freed slave Robert Blake received his Medal of Honor in April 1864 for his heroic efforts on the USS Marblehead while under Confederate attack on Dec. 25, 1863.

1883: Actor Douglas Fairbanks, best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as "The Thief of Bagdad," "Robin Hood" and "The Mark of Zorro," is born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colo. Fairbanks was also a founding member of United Artists and The Motion Picture Academy, hosting the first Oscars ceremony in 1929. He's seen here in his final movie, 1934's "The Private Life of Don Juan."

1868: American frontiersman and Indian fighter Kit Carson, whose actions during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War made him the hero of many dime novels of the time, dies of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of 58 in Fort Lyon, Colo.

1788: South Carolina ratifies the U.S. Constitution as the eighth American state.

1707: Botanist and explorer Carl Linnaeus, who was the first to establish a precise biological classification, with a uniform system for naming organisms by genus and species, is born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden.

1701: After being convicted of piracy and of murdering one of his own crew, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London. His body was hung in chains over the River Thames as a warning to future would-be pirates for three years. Some modern historians deem Kidd's piratical reputation unjust, as there is evidence that Kidd acted only as a privateer and his actions on the high seas were both less destructive and less lucrative than many other contemporary pirates.

1430: Joan of Arc is captured in battle. She would eventually be sold to the English and put on trial for heresy over her claims of divine guidance in leading France against the English during the Hundred Years' War. She was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431.

Comments

The views expressed are not those of this site, this station or its affiliated companies. By posting your comments you agree to accept our terms of use. KCCI offers readers the ability to comment on stories with the understanding that these comments may be reprinted elsewhere on the site or used on KCCI newscasts. We ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, comments that don't relate to the story and any personal remarks. THIS IS IMPORTANT: KCCI does not edit user submitted statements and we cannot promise that readers will not, at times, find offensive or inaccurate comments posted in this area. If you find a comment that is objectionable or offensive, click the flag that appears in the upper right corner when you hover over a comment. Flagged comments may be automatically hidden from comment threads. For comments to appear on the website and/or the mobile app, email addresses must be verified through Disqus. We ask the community to monitor this forum with the knowledge that KCCI does not regularly monitor these comments.